


In Another Lifetime

by kaydrama



Category: Queen Cheorin, 철인왕후 | Mr. Queen (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Fix-It, M/M, One Shot, if tvn won't give the gays what they want i wILL, second fic but make it reincarnation, very much homo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:07:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29801316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydrama/pseuds/kaydrama
Summary: In another lifetime, I will find you, love you and stay with you.
Relationships: Cheoljong of Joseon/Jang Bong Hwan, Sobong/Cheoljong
Comments: 6
Kudos: 115





	In Another Lifetime

**Author's Note:**

> uh, so im not sure if most of it even makes sense. i bullshitted some parts because i was lazy to research but it's fun, i promise. please leave a comment if you like it <3

**BONGHWAN THINKS IT’S** rather nice not having to worry about being killed every moment.

He abso-fucking-lutely loves the modern era. He drinks his favorite beer, goes to parties, and brings home a girl every day. He’s free from the hell that was Joseon era, where the stupid politics had posed a threat to his life every waking moment.

He’s free. It’s _a victory._

But victory has never tasted this bitter. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth and he does everything to get rid of this taste—he sleeps with girls, shows off the fact that he did a good deed, and everything else that can bring him some amount of joy.

But it’s fleeting.

And even then, even then, the joy doesn’t come from the activities he does to feel something—anything. It’s when he sits in his balcony and dreams of Joseon era, of the court ladies in the palace, of his loved ones that are now deep buried in the folds of history.

It’s like, even after winning, he’s lost.

He hates this feeling. He hates this emptiness that threatens to swallow him whole. Sleeping with women—and then men—brings him no joy yet he continues to do so. It’s as if he’s trying to fill a void but there’s just no end. No cure.

It drives him positively crazy.

He has been begging the universe to let him go back to his own time, to free him of the burdens and perils that Joseon era brought, so why is that now that’s he back all he does is dream of that place?

Why is it that when he comes home, he thinks of burying his head in Cheoljong’s chest? I

Why is it that in the quiet night, he adorns his hair with jewelry and tries on skirts?

He doesn’t dare think of it during the day, it’s strictly during the night. No one can know he enjoys elaborate drags.

But it’s exactly what happens.

He’s in the midst of kissing this woman—someone he never bothered to ask the name of because he didn’t want his drunkenness to wear off—and he’s unclasping the hook of her bra. She moans and he tries not to think about how it isn’t Cheoljong.

His heart betrays him as he thinks of that man—the man who kissed Bonghwan like he was his air, who kissed him like Bonghwan was the one thing tethering him to sanity—and he holds the woman’s face and kisses her more aggressively to erase the images his mind is conjuring up.

The woman rolls them over, seizing control of the situation. She’s kissing him back with just as much as fervor he had been kissing her with but suddenly, she freezes.

It’s a moment later that she pulls away and holds a piece of fabric over his head. “What is this?” she asks.

She’s holding a skirt he bought.

Bonghwan isn’t sure what she thinks about—she could think he has a wife or sleeps around—but he doesn’t care. His blood goes cold.

“Get out,” he says, voice rid of all emotions.

On the inside, he’s losing his shit. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was a secret he would take to his grave.

But now it’s out.

Bonghwan has never felt so naked in his life before. Even with a layer of clothing concealing him, he feels like he has been stripped to his core.

“What?” the woman splutters, taken aback. He doesn’t blame her. Bonghwan is aware he sounds outrageous but he can’t help it.

“I said get out,” he repeats coldly. Something about his voice must have told her that he wasn’t in a mood to argue. She nods frantically and picks up her clothes. In a haste, she pulls them on and leaves after giving him a frazzled look.

He feels bad for behaving so crassly but it’s all he could do. There’s a pit of anxiety in his stomach and he feels his heart beating so loudly inside his chest. Anxiety keeps bubbling in his stomach that he’s sure to have a stomach ache.

But more than that, he feels suffocated.

He crawls to the balcony and lets himself outside, gulping in deep breaths. It’s not helping. His mind is working miles per hour, thoughts so heavy that weigh down on his body and he can’t think. He tries to list the things in front of him to calm himself down, to tether himself to reality.

And it works. To some extent.

He lets out a humorless laugh as he holds his head between his hands. Of course, he’s having trouble. God knows he needs therapy after all the shit he’s been put through.

He pulls out his phone from his pocket and opens up ‘The Annals of King CheolJo’. He’s read this multiple times by now. It’s become a routine, sort of. To go back to this whenever he feels suffocated by the modern era.

It’s positively sick that he finds comfort in reading this but it’s all he can do.

Cheoljong died at the mere age of thirty-two. God, he can’t believe this. Even after all that trouble, the stupid man couldn’t live his life to the fullest? Live a long and peaceful life? Cheoljong was such a loser.

It angers him how after doing everything possible, Cheoljong had only lived this long. Bonghwan had put everything on the line for him and even then, this was the result?

He gave it his everything only to be fucked over like this. Some result it was, huh. And see, it’s not even the worst part of it—losing isn’t. What truly sucks is that he’s the only one who lost. When he had told Cheoljong ‘I am all in', he had been prepared to lose but he had been prepared to lose with Cheoljong.

_Not alone!_

Bonghwan had never thought he would be left alone like this again, had grown so used to the comfort that Cheoljong and Hongyeon and Court Lady Choi brought him.

And now, he’s sitting here on his balcony, mulling over the wrongs and unfairness of it all, many a lifetime apart from Cheoljong.

He had been hoping to get through the aftermath with Cheoljong but now, he’s been abandoned in waters he didn’t think he would ever swim without him. _And it isn’t even the aftermath he had been preparing for._ He screams into the sky and hurls his phone across. It gives him this temporary satisfaction but when it’s gone, he feels that gaping hole in his chest again.

_I wish you were here._

* * *

Life, Bonghwan notices, goes on.

Despite everything, it keeps going on and on.

It’s been a couple of months since he had been thrown back into the future and only two months since he has opened up this restaurant. It’s named ‘Jongie’.

Where does the name come from you may ask? Bonghwan will tell you he just liked the sound of it. It’s not in honor of the man who lived centuries ago.

Bonghwan tells himself it’s because he misses saying Jongie—Jongie, Jongie, Cheoljongie—and not because he misses the man it’s named after.

Honesty has never been his strong suit, anyway.

He’s ordering around people in the kitchen of the said restaurant, guiding his assistants on how to work on the new dishes—dishes named after Hongyeon, Court Lady Choi, ManBok, Kim Hwan—when one of the waiters stops him.

“Sir,” he says, sounding out of breath from all the rush in the restaurant. Despite the fact the restaurant opened up only three months ago, it’s doing quite well. It doesn’t surprise him. After all, he’s the retired Blue House Chef who also ousted the corruption that happened inside.

“The person left this again,” the waiter says as he hands him the paper napkin again.

“Thank you,” he says as he takes the napkin from the waiter and gestures him to leave. He opens the neatly folded napkin when the waiter leaves and reads the message.

It’s the same as always. _Thank you. The food was delicious,_ written in neat handwriting that is uncannily similar to Cheoljong’s. His heart aches again.

When he had first seen the thank you note, he had felt angry. After doing all he could do to bury the memories of that man in the deepest recesses of his heart, a stranger has the audacity to leave him this note, remind him of Cheoljong again and make all of Bonghwan’s efforts go down the drain?

He hadn’t thought about him in _so long_ —almost a month—and then, all of it had come back to him, stronger than before.

He had wanted to tear the note and punch the person who wrote it but he physically couldn’t bring himself to do so. Instead, he had folded the note back just as neatly and kept it in his side drawer.

He thought that would be the end of it. But the notes kept coming—they still do.

One day, he had even asked the waiter to keep a lookout for a person but when the waiter—Mr. Go—had called for him, he hadn’t moved. He backed out because a part of him, it wanted to pretend that he was cooking for Cheoljong and Cheoljong was sending him little notes of thank you. It was such a Cheoljong thing to do—to write notes of appreciation at the slightest of things.

Cheoljong was unlike everyone in that palace and god, does Bonghwan miss him.

Even now, as he thinks about him, he has this overwhelming urge to cry. A sound that’s a mix of both a sob and a laugh escapes his mouth.

He rushes to cover it up by coughing.

He folds the note back again and pockets it. He sometimes catches himself wondering who this person exactly is but his want—no, _need—_ to pretend that it was him, Cheoljong, to hold onto Cheoljong always weighed down on his curiosity. He never wanted to shatter the illusion.

_Ignorance is bliss._

* * *

It’s becoming a routine now. He comes to the horse-riding arena every weakened to clear his head and de-stress.

He has never been fond of sports before but now, he keeps coming back to it. He supposes it’s because horse riding reminds him of Cheoljong but not in an overwhelming way. He remembers the quiet laugh of Cheoljong but it’s drowned out by the wind in his ears.

He misses Cheoljong’s arms around him but most often, he’s trying not to fall off the horse to think about it.

It’s an activity that allows his mind to be free of thoughts, something Bonghwan is always desperate for. His way of de-stressing used to be cooking but it’s more stressful now than it is therapeutic—the reason why he opened a restaurant—so he has turned to horse riding now. Besides, he’s fonder of open places now.

It has been an exhausting session today so Bonghwan is tired when he steps down from the horse. He reaches for his water bottle and takes a gulp.

He’s sweating heavily and he needs to shower or else, he’ll die.

He makes his way to the locker and opens up 32B. His stuff is a mess but he, somehow, manages to get his spare pair of clothes out. He’s in the middle of doing it when a voice says, “Your stance was off.”

He turns around. Oh, he knows this guy. Even though the guy has his back to Bonghwan, he knows exactly who it is. A certified jerk. He wears a deep bright red and is a major asshole. Bonghwan isn’t sure why the man had t pick a fight today out of all the days. His day is already shitty enough.

“My stance is perfectly fine, thank you.”

The man, without turning to face Bonghwan goes on, as if he hadn’t even heard what Bonghwan had said. “You seemed distracted too. You don’t seem skilled enough to zone out like that. Beginner, at most I would say. If you being distracted like that, it can kill you.”

Bonghwan knows he’s right. His coach told him multiple times but he can’ help it. It just happens sometimes. Besides, it doesn’t happen all that often!

And even if what the man is saying is true, he doesn’t care. He’s annoyed. The stranger is no one to point it out. “What did you say about my skill?” he snaps, “Have you seen yours? You ride like a lousy man.”

_Untrue_ but Bonghwan doesn’t care. He’s too annoyed to think.

“That’s because I am skilled enough to ride with the laziness of a lousy man,” the man retorts quickly. “Do you, perhaps, want to see just how good of a rider I am?”

Bonghwan stutters. No way. This is Korea. A man isn’t flirting with him. And the said man definitely did not just make an innuendo.

“No, thank you.”

“Are you afraid?”

“No?”

“Do you want to compete, then?”

Annoyed, he says, “Yes.”

The man finally lets go of the bag he’s been fiddling with and turns around. Bonghwan freezes.

_It’s him. It’s him. It’s him._

But it’s impossible. It cannot be Cheoljong. He lived in the past or he was a part of Bonghwan’s fever dream. Cheoljong is _not_ standing in front of him. It’s a man who resembles him but is not him. But when the said man smirks, his lips pulling up into this smile that’s part mischievous and part cocky, it’s hard to believe it’s him.

“Are you _all in_ , my queen?”


End file.
